National Parks Traveler

It's difficult to miss them on the National Mall: They're dressed in yellow shirts and khaki pants or shorts, wear ball caps with the National Park Service and Trust for the National Mall logos, and heft backpacks filled with information and, if you're thirsty, water.

A year-long review of how wildlife management and other sciences are studied in the National Park System has produced a call for the National Park Service to both recommit its staff to the sciences and to reemphasize science in the park system.

Imagine if more than a third of the 397 units of the National Park System had to shut down because the Park Service didn't have the money to operate them. That's one example the National Parks Conservation Association is using to illustrate the threat of impending budget cuts on the agency.

With Tropical Storm Issac taking aim on the Gulf Coast, national parks and seashores in its path are battening down and getting ready to ride out the storm.

A 49-year-old San Diego man has been identified as the victim of a fatal grizzly bear mauling in Denali National Park and Preserve. Park officials also say the bear believed responsible was shot and killed by an Alaska state trooper.

A round-up of global national park news.

Most points along the Atlantic shorelines of the United States are polluted by the lights of crowded cities when the sun goes down. When sitting beneath the stars on the fine sands of Assateague Island National Seashore in Maryland, you can become distracted by the gleam of lights from Ocean City to the North. But if you peak above, the sky is a pure midnight black with the constellations brightly shining.

One-hundred-and-fifty years ago, the first Confederate invasion of the North occurred in September of 1862 at present-day Monocacy National Battlefield. You can gain a sense of that event next month when Civil War re-enactors set up a Confederate camp at the battlefield.

While there are nearly 400 units of the National Park System, there are only about 150 groups today that view themselves as friends groups working to benefit the parks. Interested in creating a friends group, or need help getting your organization out of the blocks? The National Park Foundation is there to help.

A solo backpacker along the Toklat River in Denali National Park has been fatally mauled by a grizzly bear, according to park officials, who added it was believed to be the first fatal mauling in the park's history.